Raucci fight for pension advances

Court to rule if convicted felon's wife can collect his monthly payments

Updated 9:57 pm, Wednesday, December 26, 2012

ALBANY — Steven C. Raucci is in prison for setting off explosives, but the legal battle over his pension is set to go before the state's highest court.

On Jan. 3, the Court of Appeals will hear arguments on whether the wife of the former Schenectady school official should be allowed to receive $5,800 in monthly pension checks her husband was receiving from the New York State and Local Employees' Retirement System.

Raucci and his wife say yes — and a lower court judge agreed with them in siding against the state Office of Victim Services. A midlevel appeals court reversed that decision, leaving it to the Court of Appeals to decide an issue that will hold wide implications for future state employees convicted of crimes.

It is one of two Capital Region cases to go before the Court of Appeals on Jan. 3. The other involves a Shenendehowa School District bus driver who was fired after she tested positive for marijuana.

Raucci's Syracuse-based attorney, Alan J. Pierce, told the Times Union on Wednesday that he knows of several cases in which pension-eligible employees — such as police officers — were convicted of murder and other crimes but still collected their pensions.

"Nobody's going after them," he said, noting that his client's wife has not received any pension money since May.

Raucci, 64, the retired city school facilities supervisor, was convicted in 2010 of 18 felonies for a reign of terror in which he planted bombs on the property of perceived enemies. He is serving 23 years to life at the Clinton Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Dannemora, for first-degree arson and other crimes.

Raucci's wife, Shelley, had been cashing the checks until two of her husband's victims sought to sue Raucci to get money under the state's "Son of Sam" law, which keeps criminals from profiting from the publicity of their crimes. It also requires that crime victims be notified when a person convicted of a crime receives $10,000 or more from any source.

The victims were identified as Stephen and Colleen Capitummino, whose Rotterdam home was mistakenly firebombed by Raucci on Aug. 26, 2001, and Laura Balogh, whose Schodack home was damaged by a Raucci explosive device on Jan. 12, 2007.

The Office of Victim Services sought a preliminary injunction asking that Raucci's pension money be sent to his inmate account so the money could be preserved and eventually seized by the victims suing him. In turn, Raucci and his wife argued that pension checks are exempt from seizure under a state law that protects public employees' pensions from "execution, garnishment, attachment, or any other process whatsoever."

Albany-based state Supreme Court Justice Roger McDonough denied the victims' motion citing the "clear language" of the Retirement and Social Security Law. The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, however, reversed that ruling because it said the Son of Sam law superseded those protections.

The victims are being represented by Assistant Solicitor General Owen Demuth.

Raucci also is seeking a new criminal trial.

The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court in Albany is set to hear oral arguments related to his convictions at 1 p.m. on Feb. 6.

On the same day it handles the Raucci case, the Court of Appeals will hear the case of Cynthia DiDomenicantonio, a bus driver fired by Shenendehowa Board of Education after she tested positive for marijuana in 2009. The Civil Service Employees Association challenged the firing, arguing that the district violated the collective bargaining agreement, in which the district and union "subscribe to the concept of progressive discipline, except for the most serious offenses."

An arbitrator found DiDomenicantonio, a bus driver of 10 years, tested positive for marijuana, but that the district violated the collective bargaining agreement by refusing to exercise any discretion and treating the firing as mandatory. He ordered DiDomenicantonio reinstated without back pay.

A Supreme Court justice reversed the arbitrator's ruling, but the Appellate Division, in a 3-2 ruling, reversed the justice's decision. The case now heads to the Court of Appeals.